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He had risen, but Alexa remained seated; and their attitude gave the impression of a colloquy that had prolonged itself beyond the limits of speech. Both turned a surprised eye on Glennard and he had the sense of walking into a room grown suddenly empty, as though their thoughts were conspirators dispersed by his approach. He felt the clutch of his old fear.
"Those dreary old books!" said Alexa to herself, casting a glance on the shelves that filled the room from floor to ceiling, and from wall to wall. "What I was going to say, father," she returned, "was, that I have a little money of my own, and this affair shall cost you nothing. Leave me to contrive. Would you tell him his friends must pay his board, or take him away?
The review she read was in a paper whose editor would not have admitted it had he suspected the drift which the reviewer had failed to see; and the passages quoted appealed to Alexa in virtue, partly, of her not seeing half they involved, or anything whatever of the said drift.
She had her tea brought her, but when the supper hour arrived went to join her father in the kitchen. They always eat in the kitchen. Strange to say, there was no dining-room in the house, though there was a sweetly old-fashioned drawing-room. The servant was with the sufferer, but Alexa was too much in the sick-room, notwithstanding, to know that she was eating her porridge and milk.
He had learned that if he poured out his treasure recklessly it might be received with dishonor, and but choke the way of the chariot of approaching truth. "Perhaps you will say next there is no such thing as suffering," resumed Alexa. "No; the Lord said that in the world His friends should have tribulation." "What tribulation have you, who are so specially His friend?"
God condescend to His children their spirits born of His spirit, their hearts the children of His heart! No, ma'am! there never was a falser, uglier word in any lying sermon!" His eyes flashed and his face shone. Alexa thought she had never seen him look so grand. "I see!" she answered. "I will never use the word about God again!" "Thank you, ma'am." "Why should you thank me?"
He had occasional twinges of discomfort, for his conscience, although seared indeed, was not seared as with the hottest iron, seeing he had never looked straight at any truth: it would ease those twinges, he vaguely imagined, so to satisfy a good woman like Alexa, that she made common cause with him, accepting not merely himself, but the money of which he had at such times a slight loathing.
Alexa was pleased to see Andrew. He made her feel more comfortable. His presence seemed to protect her a little. "May I ask you, Mr. Ingram," she said, "to repeat what you were saying about the horse as we came up?"
But Alexa had risen also, and bending over her writing-table, with her back to Glennard, was beginning to speak precipitately. "I'm dining out to-night you don't mind my deserting you? Julia Armiger sent me word just now that she had an extra ticket for the last Ambrose concert. She told me to say how sorry she was that she hadn't two but I knew YOU wouldn't be sorry!"
Does he know that he who then holds them will not be able to conceive of their having been or ever being another's as now they are his? As Alexa sat in the dim light by her brooding father she loathed the shining thing he had again drawn under the bed-clothes shrunk from it as from a manacle the devil had tried to slip on her wrist.
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